


Slightly Slower and Considerably Less Angry

by Deius



Category: Fast & Furious 7 (2014), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3777727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deius/pseuds/Deius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because while I understand that it wasn’t the sort of movie where Taj and Ramsey could actually have had wild sex on the floor of the high-rise they were breaking into they should have at least made out a little.  Post Furious Seven.  Probably long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Tej Parker hated coffee. He’d tried it every which way you could think of, buy hadn’t yet found a mixture that didn’t strike him as nasty. He drank the stuff anyways, between being Dominic Toretto’s go-to techie and, with Brian’s retirement, unofficial third best driver he needed it. His current cup of the stuff didn’t taste as gross as most did, but, had he bothered to think about it, this probably had more to do with his taste buds shutting down because he’d been awake form fifty-four hours and counting than anything else.

Tej wasn’t entirely sure on all the details, Dom’s word had been enough for him, but for whatever reason a South African business magnate had been unfortunate enough to become the Crew’s current mark. Unfortunately his assets were elusive, to say the least, so Tej had been parked in front of his computer for felt like an eternity hacking into a variety of increasingly obscure databases and poring over the information therein for something of value they could steal. He clicked into another folder and began to scroll down. The lines of text slowly unfocused into a series of pixelated blurs. Tej blinked and rubbed his eyes until the pixels reassembled themselves into words. He made it through perhaps four more lines before his eyelids drooped incontrovertibly shut.

In his dream Tej was back in Los Angeles running from Mose Jakande’s drone. He sat in the back seat not paying attention to the laptop sitting next to him and displaying the location of the drone. Tej already knew precisely where it was: right behind them and closing fast. In the driver’s seat Roman sent the car skidding through an intersection before shooting off perpendicular to its original course. Tej grunted as he was flung against the side of the car. Immediately in front of him Ramsey mirrored the motion and made a similar sound, albeit one that the portion of Tej’s brain determined to take advantage of all the simple pleasures he could before he was blown up decided was far more attractive than it had any right to be. They raced around another corner, tires leaving a series of stripes arcing across the pavement, and the car started to shake violently. His mind working in the haze of dream logic, this did not seem unsettling. It did make one part of his mind worry for Ramsey’s well-being in the increasingly unsafe environment while another part hoped it would cause her to groan again. This part of his mind felt appropriately guilty afterwards.

The drone was almost in range, it was time to go. Tej gathered himself and launched himself out of the car on Roman’s signal, keeping an eye on Ramsey as he did so. To his horror the now extreme vibrations caused her to tangle in her seatbelt on her way out the door. Unable to detach herself in time she remained with the car as it coasted down the alley, as the drone fired a missile at it, as it was consumed in a fireball. Tej pulled himself to his feet and sprinted towards the wreckage, shoes slipping across the wet asphalt.

“Ramsey!” he cried as the dream swirled into nothing and he jolted awake. Breathing heavily and with half his keyboard indented across the side of his face Tej found himself face to face with Letty Ortiz. She snapped the piece of gum she was chewing and looked singularly unimpressed with, well, pretty much everything.

“So, Ramsey huh?” she observed, taking the hand she’d shaken him awake with off his shoulder. “Good dream?” Tej yawned so wide his jaw twinged and rolled his neck from side to side.

“Not really,” he said as he blinked most of the remaining sleep from his eyes. Letty sat down on the table next to Tej’s monitor.

“That’s a shame,” she said. “I was hoping to get some real dirt on you, man.” She grinned. Tej shook his head and tried to rub the side of his face imprinted with keyboard back into an ordinary shape. He was surprised by the amount of stubble coating his face. He really had been burning both ends of the midnight oil, or something like that.

“Just a bad dream I got by having too much coffee and not enough sleep. I’m already forgetting it,” Tej said, knowing full well the last bit was a bald-faced lie. It wasn’t that he’d thought Letty didn’t know about his attraction to Ramsey, she caught him and Rome playing rock paper scissors over the Brit in Abu Dhabi1, but this dream somehow felt more embarrassing than that. Tej wasn’t sure why.

“Oh yeah? When’s the last time you’ve slept?”

“Uh, what day is it?” Tej asked. Letty laughed until she realized he was serious.

“Damn man, really? It’s Thursday.”  
“I’ve been here since late Monday, so going on three days,” said Tej. He stood up and started to stretch. Letty looked over his workspace with renewed interest.

“You’ve been in here,” she gave a little wave with her hand to indicate the immediate area around them, “for three days?”

Tej nodded and started to look around for an unfinished cup of coffee. He knew he had at least one sitting around somewhere. “More or less, yeah,” he said. Letty was silent for a moment while she processed this.

“What’ve you been eating?”

“Coffee,” Tej said. “And, uh, Chinese takeout. I think I’ve got some left actually.” As Letty looked on with equal parts fascination and horror Tej took a wrinkled aluminum tin out of his small refrigerator and dropped a piece of Mongolian Beef into his mouth. Juice splattered onto his chin. He wiped it off with the back of his hand and kept chewing.

“That’s disgusting,” said Letty, never one to shy away from expressing her opinion. Tej didn’t think so, he kept eating. “What were you doing for so long.”

“Trying to figure out what Mr. Pretorius has that’s worth stealing,” Tej garbled through a full mouth, putting away his leftover leftovers.

Letty was confused. “I don’t understand,” she admitted. “Pretorius basically runs the South African free market. How can he not have anything worth stealing?” Tej shrugged.

I thought the exact same thing. I figured I’d be here for one, two hours tops and have a pretty good idea of what to tell Dom.” He shook his head and yawned. “That was on Monday and I’ve still got nothing. The man might not be a ghost but all his damn money is.”

Letty looked him over. “Tell you what,” she said. “Take a few minutes get yourself cleaned up, ‘cause you need a shower so bad, and then we’ll go see Dom and get this figured out. Sound good?”

“I mean, I guess,” Tej said, walking into his bathroom. “I already told you I didn’t find anything worth sharing though,” he called back after closing the door. Letty heard running water start.

“You’ve done more than he asked you to man, the last thing Dom wants any of us to do is get ourselves hurt,” she retorted, but between the door and the shower she wasn’t sure if he could hear her. Letty looked around Tej’s apartment to pass the time. Apart from the small area that Tej had been using as a workspace and turned into something that pretty well fit the description ‘rat’s nest’ the apartment was remarkably clean. It was really clean actually, almost clinically so, Letty noted to herself. She heard the door open and Tej stepped out of the bathroom buttoning his shirt.

“You don’t spend very much time here, do you,” she stated. Tej looked surprised, but shook his head no.

“Not really,” he agreed. “Usually to sleep or when I need to do work that doesn’t involve driving around.” He had a sort row of car keys sitting by his door and picked one seemingly at random. “We good to go?” Letty nodded. They went.

To Tej’s surprise, and exactly as Letty had predicted, Dom seemed more concerned with Tej’s behavior than what his extensive research had or had not revealed. “When’s the last time you did something you really enjoyed Tej?” Dom asked after he’d heard the whole story. Tej opened his mouth, but then closed it again, confused. Dom and Letty shared a look.

“What do you mean?” Tej asked, then he tried to answer his own question. “I ride around with y’all a lot. I’m out with Rome what seems like every goddamn night. And I’m spending time with Hobbs getting my ass-kicking game up.” Dom nodded slowly and looked unenthusiastic.

“You ride with us because we ask you to,” he said, counting his counterpoints off on his fingers as he listed them. “You go out with Rome because that moron needs more babysitting than any other grown man I’ve ever met and you’re the only one of us that hasn’t gotten fed up and decided he should get out of trouble on his own.”

“I normally just stop him before he gets into trouble.”

“I’m not finished. What I’m saying is, you’re not really into cruising with me and Letty no more, you damn sure got fed up with whatever crap Roman’s about a long time ago, and there is no one on earth who actually enjoys working on fighting with Hobbs.” Dom looked Tej in the eyes, but Tej couldn’t return it and looked at the ground. “What’s really going on with you?”

Tej shifted in place and kept staring at his feet. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s just… after LA it felt like we were a whole family again. Hadn’t really felt that way since before Giselle and Han…” he trailed off. Dom understood, he nodded, reassuring Tej.

“Letty, would you grab us some Corona’s?” Ordinarily Dom would have just gotten his own beer instead of asking Letty to do it, ordinarily she would have given him shit for not doing that, but ordinary didn’t include Tej Parker standing in the their living room with his voice cracking. Letty nodded and walked away.

“Sure.”

“Sit,” Dom said, pointing at a couch just raggedy enough to be at its most comfortable. “Keep going.”

“I mean, and then Brian and Ramsey went their way and Ramsey went hers. All of which is fine and all. It’s just getting so I feel like we’re only a family when we’re in danger of getting killed.” He choked and held up a hand. “I need my family man.”

“So when I told you about Pretorius you decided to do everything you could to try and get us all back in danger as soon as possible.” Dom was speaking at barely above a whisper and his voice seemed all the rougher for it. Tej’s head snapped up and he looked like he was going to be sick. “Relax,” Dom said, “I don’t think you actually want any of us to get hurt. I don’t blame you for wanting to feel us come together either. Family is important. I know that better than most people. But there’s got to be a better way for you to do this.” They sat in silence for a minute before Letty walked back into the room. She handed Tej a beer before curling up on Dom ad murmuring into Dom’s ear. Tej couldn’t make out what she said, but he did see Dom’s face become more and more bemused. He sipped at his Corona and waited for Letty to finish. Eventually, she did.

You’re lucky I have such a brilliant wife Tej,” Dom rumbled.

Tej swallowed, it might not have been making him feel any better, but at least the beer tasted good. “Why’s that?”

“She told me how to fix your computer problem and your death wish at the same time.”

“Oh yeah? What you gonna do Dom?”

Dom grinned, a real shit eater, the first one of those Tej had seen in a long time, and fished a cell phone out of his pocket. This was an impressive feat with Letty sitting on him. He flicked through his contacts without looking so he could watch Tej’s reaction when he answered him. “I’m going to give Ramsey a call. I’m sure she’d love to help.”

Whatever Tej’s face looked like, it had Dom laughing for a good minute after Ramsey answered her phone. She didn’t seem to mind.

1He’d felt appropriately guilty after that afterwards too.


	2. Chapter Two

“XP? Seriously? What is this, two thousand and four? It’s twenty fifteen and you’re using windows XP?” Ramsey was incredulous. A small part of Tej sympathized, another small part of him would have tolerated almost any criticism as long as it was Ramsey’s careful enunciation doing it, the better part of Tej, however, was too much of a techie to tolerate anyone criticizing his software choices.

“Do you know what classic means, Ramsey?” Tej retorted. Ramsey made a show of rolling her eyes.

“ _That’s_ your big defense? That it’s a classic?” Ramsey was sitting at the Toretto’s kitchen table, both her and Tej’s laptops humming in front of her. Tej was looking over her shoulder at the jumble of financial data spread across the two screens, one hand resting on the back of Ramsey’s chair. He smirked.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” he said, stepping forward where she could see him and crouching down so he was just below her eye level. Ramsey obligingly flicked her eyes down to his. “Classic, as this applies to cars just as much as computers, is when it’s old, but still better than all the new shit they got out. Like Dom’s Charger.”

“Before he drove it off a roof and destroyed it.”

“Well, yeah, before that.”

Ramsey smiled sweetly. “I’m sure that’s true for cars, but for computers,” she leaned closer and lowered her voice until it took every ounce of Tej’s willpower not to focus on her lips more than the words coming out of them, “it just means the owner doesn’t want to keep up with innovation.”

“If when you say innovation you mean a bunch of useless bells and whistles then yeah, I’m not too excited about that.” They lapsed into silence for a moment, then Ramsey hummed the most patronizing uh-huh that Tej had ever heard. Pleasantly infuriated – was any emotion not pleasant to him when she caused it? – Tej stood up and snatched Ramsey’s laptop from the table. “You know what, I’ll just show I know how to use this crap. Then will you get off me about my personal operating system on my personal computer?”

“I didn’t realize I was on you,” Ramsey said with all the faux innocence she could muster, “but yes, if you’d like to do that I will get off.” Two vivid images raced through Tej’s mind. Neither had anything to do with computers. Luckily Tej was able to regain his focus just in time to stop the laptop from tumbling out of his arms. Ramsey, who of course knew exactly what she was doing and was pleased that it was working, giggled. Not a vapid sort of giggle, nor the jangling common kind that often leaves it’s owner feeling a little embarrassed: it was an elegant burble of a laugh that left the tip of its’ owner’s tongue poking through the front teeth of a swelling smile that made Tej Parker forget everything he had ever learned about computers. He waved the cursor absently around for a few moments trying to jog his memory, but it didn’t work, so, defeated, he placed Ramsey’s laptop back on the table. Ramsey opened her mouth to say something and Tej’s mind raced to come up with the retort he was sure he would need, but before either could finish they heard Dom’s voice calling to them from outside.

“Are you two going to come out and eat or were you planning on staying inside all day?” he called. Tej lifted his eyebrows at Ramsey. She shrugged an affirmative.

“We’ll, uh, be right out Dom,” Tej yelled, “we just gotta finish up some nerd shit first.” He heard a guffaw that could only have been Roman in response and suddenly felt disproportionately protective of Ramsey. That moron was going to try something, he just knew it. If it backfired it might sour his chances at a relationship with the Brit, but if it worked that would be even worse. It was at that moment that Tej decided to things. The was that he really liked Ramsey, like actually really really liked her, a realization still as disgusting as it had been in the tenth grade. Wasn’t he supposed to be a badass? The second was that if Roman ever slept with her he would run him over.

“Finish up some nerd shit first?” Ramsey asked. “I thought you already admitted I had too much machine for you to handle.”

“We- what? No, I just wanted to make sure we’d actually finished the work you flew over here to do.”

Ramsey shrugged. “For the most part, yeah. Everything that doesn’t involve waiting hours for data to be processed and compiled.”

“Then I guess we’re finished.” Tej jerked his head in the direction of the barbeque. “You good to go?” Ramsey nodded and held out her hand. Tej reached out to help her up, but when he took her hand all the static electricity he had collected from her laptop jumped between them with a sharp pop and a painful sting. Tej swore and snatched his hand back. Ramsey looked at him reproachfully and pushed herself to her feet.

“I’m as surprised about the spark between us as you, but you don’t have to seem so upset about it,” she said. Then she floated out of the kitchen leaving Tej dumbfounded.

It took only a moment or two for Tej to gather himself and follow Ramsey out of the house, but that was more than enough time for Roman Pierce to try and be charming. Tej showed up only in time to witness the tail end of this and it didn’t appear that Roman was particularly successful in this endeavor, but he’d also given up trying to decipher the young woman and decided it was just as likely that Roman’s self-obsessed flirting had been successful. He tried not to care but couldn’t quite get there.

“Waitin’ on you man,” Letty called to Tej over the table full of food. Shaking his head a little bit Tej walked over to the table and dropped into a seat between Letty and Ramsey. Dom was passionately trying to explain to Ramsey what it was he loved so much about driving cars. He wasn’t nearly as good at this as he was at actually driving them and Ramsey didn’t seem to be getting it. Tej couldn’t blame her, it was something you couldn’t really have explained to you, you just drove cars often enough and eventually something clicked with you. Eventually the conversation slowed enough for Ramsey to absentmindedly reach out for the food waiting in the middle of the table, provoking cheers from Roman and Letty. Dom rolled his eyes, bemused, and Ramsey looked to Tej for an explanation behind all the antics.

“Oh, uh, it’s cause you were the first person to reach for the food,” he explained. When her blank look didn’t change he kept going. “We have a tradition where the first person to reach for the food has to bless the table so, uh…” he trailed off. Dom was quick to pick up the slack.

“That’s right,” he gleefully growled. “Bless our table.” Ramsey shrugged and held out her hands. Tej took one. This time, to Tej’s relief, there was no static.

“Guess our spark is gone,” he quipped. Ramsey bit into her bottom lip and ducked her face from sight. Tej thought he might have caught at glimpse of a blush, but she had been too quick for him to be totally sure.

“Dear Lord,” Ramsey began, prompting Tej to drop his head and squeeze his eyes closed, “thank you for letting us all be here together today, and let us continue to do so regardless of what troubles we may face. Amen.”

“Amen,” the rest of the group agreed. Then Dom immediately jumped back into his conversation with Ramsey which shortly devolved into a five way argument about nothing in particular. Every few minutes Ramsey would say something causing Letty to elbow Tej in the side, and, if he looked at her because of this, give him a tiny knowing nod in Ramsey’s direction. It was ridiculously smug and Tej had taken to just kicked at her under the table instead. This went on for a while until the food was almost gone and the Coronas would have been gone if Dom hadn’t sent Roman speeding off to bring back more. And even the often oblivious Roman saw that Tej was more lively and engaged than they had seen him in weeks. Then an uninvited sixth man slunk up the driveway to smoothly and quietly he almost made it to the table before Dom processed the sleek, smiling, silver haired Mr. Nobody walking up and shot out of his chair so quickly it flew back several feet and crumpled to the ground.

“What the hell are you doing here? he demanded, striding around the table and blocking the smaller man from the rest of the group. Mr. Nobody chuckled and held up his hands in what was simultaneously a claim of harmlessness and a careless shrug. Two smaller Dom’s were reflected back out of his shades and even though he was in the same space as Dom and Leticia Toretto he still managed to exude more danger than anyone at the table, but even more impressive than that was that even in a carefully fitted suit he didn’t appear hopelessly overdressed standing next to a man who considered a beater to be appropriate wedding attire.

“Well, I was in the neighborhood, and your friends there are in the middle of a hack that’s going to make at least twelve world leaders very unhappy, so I thought I drop by and see how you were doing.” He smirked and shrugged again as if the whole affair warranted no more concern than trying to decide where to go for lunch. Tej had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t, at least not to the smug bastard standing in front of him. “Are those Coronas? Ordinarily I’d pass on that for a Belgian, but you still haven’t tried that stuff have you?”

Somehow placated by this, Dom turned and let Mr. Nobody pass, then followed close behind him back to the table. He leaned down when he passed by Tej. “Make at least twelve world leaders very unhappy Tej? You told me you were just trying to find where Pretorious keeps his money.”

“That’s all we was doing man,” Tej hissed back. “I’ve no idea what Blofield’s talking about, or why his supervillain looking ass even felt the need to get involved.” Dom looked from Tej to Mr. Nobody and then back to Tej again. The hacker shrugged in final protest for his innocence and Dominic Toretto believed him. What else could he do?

“Tej seems to think he’s wrongfully accused,” Dom said. “And I’m a lot more inclined to trust him than you.” Mr. Nobody took a swig of Corona and made a point of daubing his mouth off with a napkin before responding.

“Tej probably isn’t aware what a stir he’s causing. Pretorious rubs shoulders with a lot of people, some of which are very important on the international political circuit. And why shouldn’t he? The man’s a very shrewd and very successful businessmen who’s also proven to be spotlessly legitimate and even quite charitable.” Mr. Nobody looked down at his hands and began to examine his fingernails for nonexistent specks of dirt. “Of course you and I both know those last two aren’t entirely accurate and in bringing him down you’ll force the rest of the world to come to terms with that too. Which would be embarrassing for, well, at least twelve world leaders.”

Dom folded his arms across his chest. “Are you telling us to stop going after Pretorious?”

“Unofficially, no,” Mr. Nobody said, shaking his head, “it’s about time that bastard went down. Officially, well officially not only am I going to tell you to cease and desist any actions you may be undertaking with the intent of bringing harm to Morgan Pretorious, I’m also going to have to apprehend one of your hackers.”

Dom frowned. “You know that’s never going to happen,” he said, an immutable fact rather than a question. On cue a small group of men in urban combat gear appeared moving up the driveway with silenced assault rifles. And another climbing over the fence separating the Toretto house from their neighbors. And another here, and another there until the table was surrounded by a veritable small army of crack troops. There was a shocked pause while all present members of the Toretto family slowly stood up and processed what was going on. Mr. Nobody took advantage of the pause to get off the table, straighten his jacket, and move far closer to his perimeter of troops than to the now seething Dom. Tej couldn’t put into words how smart a decision he thought that was.

“I thought you might say that,” he said, “so I brought some friends with me. Look, I know you hate having to do this, believe me I hate having to force you to do this, but I don’t have a choice, so I can’t give you a choice and one way or another either Mister Parker or Miss Ramsey is leaving here with me.”

_Well,_ Tej thought to himself as Dom stepped in front of both him and Ramsey, _at least now I know for sure she’s unmarried._


End file.
